


Immoveable Object, Unstoppable Force

by obscure_affection



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: M/M, Mild disturbing themes, nothing too awful though, this pair needs more love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-08
Updated: 2013-01-08
Packaged: 2017-11-24 04:28:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/630417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/obscure_affection/pseuds/obscure_affection
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>‘Light and dark were very different things. Neither could honestly be called good or bad. Sherlock felt he was both simultaneously. Perhaps that was why he smiled, the next time he kissed Jim.’</p>
            </blockquote>





	Immoveable Object, Unstoppable Force

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Нерушимая преграда, неудержимая сила](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1348186) by [Alves](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alves/pseuds/Alves)



The more he thinks about it the more he knows-  _knows-_  that Jim and he must have been born of the same idea, and John (and Mycroft) from another one altogether.

He imagines their joined births often. A singular bolt of lightening in the daytime, cracked against a cloudy grey sky, a mere second of impact burning hotter than the sun, and in its wake the ground must have bubbled and sizzled. Melted. It would have stunk, Sherlock thinks, their birth. The opposite of brining life into the world. A smell like burning metal, rotting flowers, wood polish, and something again more chemical. And from the cesspit they would rise together, two men with a common root.

Only they must have been born back to back, Sherlock thinks; back to back and facing in different directions. Jim walked right and Sherlock walked left. The first real betrayal between them, it must have been, that initial divergence.

It would take them years to find each other again.

~

If you asked John Watson to define the word game, he would describe it as something fun but ultimately harmless. He is the person who attempts to remind everyone that its ‘only a game’ when things get heated.   
  
Only a game. Sherlock has always hated the expression. It dismisses games, he thinks, knows, tries once to tell John. _It isn’t just a game when you really play it. When I play it. Games are puzzles, dances, ideas in motion, games are important._  Just a game. 

Mycroft plays games all the time, but never admits to it. He calls his games ‘compulsory negotiations’ and thats no fun at all. Once, maybe, Mycroft might have enjoyed playing the game like Sherlock. But once isn’t now, and now Mycroft considers games beneath him, a petty waste of time.

‘The game is on,’ Sherlock had said, to Mrs Hudson and to John.  
  
Sherlock had meant  _the fun is starting._  John had heard  _the hunt is starting._  Only it wasn’t meant to be a hunt, not at all, because Sherlock wasn’t hunting the bad guy but the ‘more’ that his mind needed but so seldom got.  
  
Jim was one of the few people who ever offered Sherlock more.  
  
~  
  
In the awful TV shows John watches, Sherlock notes sadly that the ‘bad guys’ are often shrouded in darkness. Or when the main character is confronted with a dark room, they become afraid. The viewer too is meant to become afraid, Sherlock assumes, but he is not.   
  
Being afraid of the dark is being afraid of the unknown, afraid of what might be, scared of what you can’t see. Sherlock has always rushed head-first into the unknown. Into the dark, as it were.

The first time Sherlock and Jim kiss is in the dark.

It had been the kind of darkness Sherlock knows he should have feared. His own hand was invisible before his eyes. Every step could have been onto a mine, into the barrel of a gun, over the edge of a building. There was nearly no data for him to use.  
  
His right hand had connected with stubble mid-air, and Sherlock felt Jims smile against his palm. They’d found each other in the darkness, Sherlock realised. Had Jim been walking towards him, silent? Or just standing, waiting for Sherlock to come to him? He didn’t know. More- Sherlock didn’t know which he would have liked better.

Sherlock was taller (taller than almost everyone, excluding Mycroft) but he only dipped his head a little. He liked the idea of Jim standing on tip-toe, so they met in the middle. It no longer mattered how dark the room was, now, because their eyes were closed.  
  
Kissing Jim was unlike kissing anyone else, in the dark on in the light. Sherlock was unafraid of showing his lack of experience, of demanding what he wanted from Jims obliging mouth, of playing dirty. Jim returned the favour. There was no subtext, no ‘I’m sorry’ or ‘Are we ok’ or any other kind of platitude, hesitancy. It was taking without apology, and in doing so giving.

(If he had ever wanted to kiss John, Sherlock would have been bitterly disappointed. It would have been kissing both his friend and a doctor, and no combination could be less sexually appealing to Sherlock. He didn’t kiss his friends, because if he wanted to kiss them, they wouldn’t  _be_  friends. John would have hesitated, making sure that Sherlock was sure, holding back always, waiting for the other shoe to drop, afraid of hurting either Sherlock or himself.)  
  
Sherlock cupped Jims face in both his hands, relishing the stubble on the soft skin of his inner palm, and Jim tilted into him so that their suited bodies aligned. Eyes open, eyes closed, it made no difference in the darkness.  
  
Sherlock had always rushed head-first into the unknown.  
  
~

The natural opposite of darkness is light, and according the drivel that was popular culture, light was good. Light was pure, it revealed the truth, it saved people from danger and fear. Sherlock repressed a yawn.  
  
In one sense it was true, he had to admit. Regular contact with sunlight helped regulate the body clock and could help ease mild unhappiness. But that wasn’t the same as suggesting you should stare into the sun.

Sherlock thought of himself as light shot through with darkness. A very nearly 50/50 blend of shadow and exposure. He had never, for example, personally killed a person. Jim had. But Sherlock had tortured living people, had thrown men out of windows and injected them with drugs and ruined their lives with his deductions. He smiled when Jim kidnapped children. Called Jim ‘neat’ when he realised how they were going to die. The fact that the children lived was pleasing, but a secondary point altogether.

Light and dark were very different things. Neither could honestly be called good or bad. Sherlock felt he was both simultaneously.  
  
Perhaps that was why he smiled, the next time he kissed Jim. Sunlight had been pouring in through the windows, casting shadows on their pale skin. It was as light as it could be, as far removed from the darkness of their first touches as possible. Sherlock pressed Jim into the table, bringing their height closer together, enjoying the way Jims legs wound tight around his waist.

Dust was illuminated as it floated mid-air. The flecks of light brown in Jims usually dark eyes were mesmerising. Sherlock didn’t close his eyes, but he knew without knowing how he knew it, that this was still walking into the unknown- with his eyes open. Jims hair had been smoothed back, and Sherlock ran his hands through it, until he looked fucked.  
  
‘You’ve given me sex hair,’ Jim mouthed into him, and Sherlock shook his head.  
  
‘No, I haven’t. But I will.’  
  
~  
  
Jim was the only person Sherlock ever properly performed for. John heard him play in moments of thoughtfulness or boredom, Mrs Hudson heard him through the floor, and Mycroft was abused with sound, but Jim was worthy of an honest and emotional performance.  
  
He played Johann Sebastian Bach with Jim. Played Bach naked, with Jim spread out like butter over toast beneath him. Sherlock played with his eyes closed and Jims hands never left his skin. He tapped the notes as Sherlock played them. Consumed by music, Sherlock seemed to feel every noise resonate inside his head, blocking out all other data. Jim was tracing the music on the inside of his thigh, over his floating ribs. And Sherlock played, played, played.  
  
Irene had said  _I was just playing the game_ , and Sherlock had not understood why she cried, why it would hurt so much to be- The song finished and Sherlock held the bow by his side, immobile, eyes closed, not letting himself finish that thought. Had Jim read it on him already?  
  
‘And this is just loosing,’ Jim said, gently, into the curve of Sherlocks knee.  
  
~

When Mycroft found out (he was always going to find out, Sherlock knew) he tried to put a stop to it. It. Them. Sherlock almost laughed at the idea of somebody putting a stop to himself  _and_  Jim. You could stop one, if you were very smart, but both? No.  
  
‘This will kill you, Sherlock,’ Mycroft insisted, voice low and furious. ‘Don’t you see that? This can only end-  _will_  only end- with your death.’

‘Or yours,’ Sherlock pointed out, shrugging. ‘Or Johns. Or everyones. Or maybe nobody will die, if you keep your nose out of my life.’

‘You are my brother-‘  
  
‘And I am not your property! I don’t want your blessing-‘  
  
‘Which is good, because you don’t have it. This is madness even for you. He tried to blow John up. He wants to burn you.’  
  
‘If you would remember the night properly, after Jim tried to blow John up, I tried to blow us  _all_  up. Fairs fair. I’m not a child. I can give as good as I get.’  
  
Mycroft thinned his lips, and started making threats. The trust fund. Telling John. Locking Jim up forever. Ban him from the Yard. Sherlock was surprised and pleased to find there were only four things Mycroft could think of, that might have power over him. He smiled, and Mycrofts lips became thinner again.  
  
‘Face it, big brother,’ Sherlock smirked, ‘the only reason you don’t like this is because its made you realise that you don’t  _have_  any power, not over me. And not over him. And over us together? You’ve got nothing. Its in your own interest to leave us both alone.’

Mycroft closed his eyes and Sherlock got out of the car, arching his back in the cold autumn air. He’d just won an argument with his brother by threatening him with Jim. Interesting.

Big Brother is scared of you.  
SH  
  
Rightly so. You should see what I can do to CCTV, its obscene. Now come over so I can appease my oral fixation.  
Jim  
  
Sherlock grinned, and turned to wink at the nearest CCTV camera.

~

‘Did it surprise you?’  
  
They were naked and spent, Jims body pressed along Sherlocks. Jim was propped up on his elbows, examining the way Sherlocks sweaty hair curled as it dried. Sherlock was running his hands up and down Jims exposed back, and had to replay the sentence a few times before it made sense to him. 

‘Am I surprised Mycroft doesn’t want to cross you? Of corse not.’  
  
‘No, stupid,’ Jim snapped. ‘Does it surprise you my brand of power out-does his?’  
  
‘Forgive me, I forgot power came in stylish branded bags now. But no, it doesn’t. Mycroft is trying to maintain the sandcastle and you’re sitting next to him, threatening to knock it down. Even if he tries to stop you- even if he  _did_  stop you- the sand would still get damaged in the struggle.’  
  
 ’That’s awful imagery,’ Jim said, wrinkling his noes even as he grinned. ‘I had no desire to imagine Mycroft in a bathing suit. And where do you fit in, hmm, Sherlock? Are you a seagull?’  
  
Sherlock lubed his fingers, grinning.

‘Oh, I’ll show you where I  _fit in…’_

~

Sherlock liked the way they looked together. They both had ghost skin and inky dark hair. Like human dalmatians, Jim had once said, and laughed. But it was their differences that Sherlock liked. Jims eyes were larger, and a dark brown close to black in colour. Sherlock had the better, fuller lips, though, and he was taller.  
He liked to take photos of Jim and himself, storing them carefully on his phone. It was risky (he didn’t trust Mycroft not to find them and use them against him, somehow) but he liked having them too much. His phone sometimes felt as if it were burning into his skin, branding him with the memories of Jim it contained.

~

As far as experiments went, it hadn’t actually been a bad one. No human body parts, no exploding, no vile smell, no harpoons or guns or fire. That didn’t stop John from being angry about it, though.  
  
‘All over the bloody wall, Sherlock!’  
  
‘It was an experiment.’  
  
‘I know that, I’m not stupid, but why couldn’t it have happened on a different wall? Any other wall?’  
  
‘You know I’m banned from Barts for another three days.’  
  
‘And this- smashing bugs into our wall- couldn’t have waited three days?’  
  
Yes. ‘No. I needed to examine the different splatter patters and discolourations made by various insects killed by fly swatters.’   
  
John closed his eyes and ran his hand down his face. His other hand was on his hip. This was a pose he often struck when he considered Sherlock to be behaving more unusually than he’d expected. It made him look like a melodramatic housewife trying to explain to her irrational husband why they couldn’t have twenty yachts. It was one of Sherlocks favourite expressions and he sometimes annoyed John just to see it- the crumpled paper of his face was a study of its own.  
  
‘You can be so damn hard to live with,’ John said at last. ‘Do you know that? You’re my best friend but I want to punch you at least nine times a day. And I could probably brake your nose, if I did.’  
  
‘But you won’t.’  
  
‘But I want to! Jesus, Sherlock, can you just take some photos of the results and then clean it up?’  
  
‘Fine! It’s like living with an old woman, honestly-‘  
  
‘No,’ John corrected, ‘its like living with a normal person who doesn’t like bug intestines as wall decorations. Ok?’  
  
John then stomped off, probably to write an angry post on his blog which he would delete out of guilt within a minute of posting. Dull. Who’d want to live with a normal person anyway? It occurred to Sherlock that John would probably apologise for implying that Sherlock was abnormal, and he shrugged. The truth was that he wasn’t exactly ‘normal’ and he didn’t mind that. He was a genius. Most truly intelligent people were miserable, damaged or both. But he wouldn’t tell John that, no… When John apologised, Sherlock decided he would shrug and say ‘I’m used to it’ so that John wouldn’t fuss so much over the next experiment. Good people were so easy to emotionally manipulate. The fact that Sherlock  _was_  used to it was beside the point.

~

Sherlock was bored. Bored was, however, only one word he could have used to describe it.  
  
He said bored because the other options sounded dramatic and overwrought. He feared John deciding he needed to be medicated, feared John would learn what bored really translated into. If John knew, the doctor in him would never let up.  
  
Fortunately for Sherlock, Jim understood the torment involved in being bored. He had spent his whole life in search of distraction and entertainment, after all. The day of their twin-birth must have come with a curse, Sherlock thought, like in the old Grimm stories. Two minds unlike any others, born together to work in perfectly opposed unison, cursed both with tormenting boredom. 

It was more than not having anything to do. More than finding the whole world lacking. It felt like his brain had overheated, and was oozing out of his eyes. As though the walls were closing in on him, black tar rising in his chest, the genius of his mind screaming and ponding against nothing. Immoveable object, unstoppable force. The cocaine had helped. The work would help. And Jim did help.  
  
Sherlock would text BORED to Jim, when he could no longer stop feeling the blood running down the inside of his skull. Within the hour (or within the next 48, depending on where Jim was and what he was doing) Sherlock would be texted an address.

~  
  
They were in a dull grey building today. The carpet had holes in it, and rat poo sat lumped together in the corners. Sherlock would die before he put his coat down on this floor. He and Jim both looked wonderfully out of place, well-dressed and composed.  
  
‘And why are we here? It’s hardly five star,’ Sherlock said, not bothering to hide his distaste. Jim smiled, motioning to the half open door. The next room contained a large window, which had been recently cleaned. It also contained a snipers rifle and a tripod. Oh.  _Oh._

‘Do you want to do the honours, my dear? I know you’ve never killed before, not directly. I was thinking a quick murder, some cigarettes, some fucking and a few little puzzles would sort us out nicely.’  
  
Sherlock already knew he would say yes. Jim had killed people, Irene had killed people, Mycroft had people killed, and even John killed people- he was inexperienced by comparison. The idea of pulling the trigger, watching from a distance as a strangers skull shattered, holding life and death in his hands and choosing death, made Sherlocks stomach pull into a tight, hot knot of excitement.

‘Whats the target look like?’  
  
‘Ginger hair, purple jacket,’ Jim said, his voice casual but his body betraying his arousal. ‘I love running virgins.’  
  
‘Murder virgin.’  
  
‘Exactly. Don’t pretend you don’t like it.’  
  
‘I’m not pretending anything.’  
  
Sherlock moved to the rifle, and was glad to see that he recognised the brand. Asking for instructions would have hurt his pride and ruined the moment somewhat. Jim said nothing, merely watched as Sherlock adjusted the telescope on its mount. The ginger man was in plain sight.  
  
Did he have children? Why was he being killed? How much did it hurt, being shot through the head? Did Mycroft know this man? What would John say? Sherlock could feel the beating of his own heart, and felt his blood rush to the surface as he realised the strangers heart was about to stop beating, because of him. It was like being dealt a physical blow. Sherlock exhaled, knowing his own arousal would be starting to show.  
  
He pulled the trigger.

~

‘That was- so fucking- fucking  _hot_ -‘  
  
Sherlock arched his back so dramatically his spine lost contact with the mattress. The new angle meant that Jim slipped into him deeper, his fingers drawing blood as they pinched Sherlocks hipbones.  
  
‘Not boring a-at all- I’ve never, I thought- oh holy fuck, I- Jim-‘  
  
‘I know, I do too-‘  
  
‘Love you-‘  
  
‘I know- fuck- I do- too- love you- Sherlock-‘  
  
~  
  
Jims black moods were alike to Sherlocks, but Jim wasn’t used to somebody caring. For both of them, black moods were what happened when boredom lingered too long. In some ways it was like watching one of Johns horror movies, the ones in which even when things couldn’t possibly get worse, they did.  
  
As a child, Mycroft had worked hard to make sure that Sherlocks black moods didn’t last more than a week. He had worked to keep Sherlock fed and surrounded by potentially interesting things. Once he’d gone to uni, the cocaine started. It had been a beautiful time for Sherlock, though he never confided that to anyone other than Jim. Others- plebeian others- insisted it was a wholly negative period of his life. Sherlock remembered the highs as among his strangest, and happiest.  
  
Then Lestrade put a stop to the cocaine, offering Sherlock work, which usually kept the darker moods at bay. And now he had John, who cleaned, and put the TV on, and fed him, and shot people when need be.

Jim had not had somebody to sooth his dark moods, and the first time that Sherlock saw him in one, Jim had screamed and spit at him, throwing him from a window. It’d been the ground floor, so only the window had been damaged, but Sherlock had privatly been a little shaken. Rage and depression had given Jim an unlikely increase in his physical strength.  
  
From then on he had tried to oversee as many of Jims black moods as he could. Broken vases, a toppled economy somewhere, a smashed piano, torn Westwood, cigarette burns on both their arms, and sometimes, when things got really bad, Stayin Alive.  
  
He knew it was going to be a bad week. A client of Jims had fallen through, and he was jet lagged. He was in his third most expensive hide-out, dressed as Jim from IT, when Sherlock arrived. It was unnerving.  
  
‘Oh!’ Jim said, acting flustered. ‘You’re- Sherlock Holmes- wow! I mean, no, come in, you’re very welcome. Very welcome. Molly isn’t in. Sorry. It’s just you and me, right now. Ah. I’m Jim? I gave you my number but you didn’t call, so I just assumed you-‘  
  
Sherlock pressed his finger over Jims lips, and he fell silent at once. It took a whole three minutes of staring before Sherlock caught a glimpse of Jim Moriarty behind Jim from IT. But a glimpse was enough. Whenever Jim took on his dull, camp persona, it was a sign that he was trying to remove himself from his own mind, a self-preservation tactic, as it were. If a good old fashioned fist-fight didn’t snap him out of it, rough fucking would. Days like this, Sherlock felt like an exorcist.

~  
  
Normally he and Jim would only catch up a few times a month. Knowing it to be a bad week, however, Sherlock returned on Tursday. From the start, he knew the outlook was bad. The house was three stories tall, white, with ivy growing up towards the windows. All the windows had been opened (Jim never opened windows) and the front garden looked as though something large had fallen on it, and then been dragged away. It was hard to tell weather it’d been a body, or an offending piece of furniture. With Jim, either was likely.    
  
Worst of all, Stayin Alive was playing so loudly the air seemed to vibrate with it.  
  
The tacky song was not the sort of thing Sherlock would have initially thought Jim would have appreciated. He’d wrongly assumed, at the start, that complex classical pieces were the only pieces of music Jim would enjoy. But just as Sherlock had a strange relationship with Metal Machine music, so did Jim have a complex relationship with Stayin Alive.  
  
It was an upbeat song, about living through adversity and smiling about it. Played during the lowest and most dangerous points of Jims moods, it was a red flag waving in the wind to Sherlock.

He picked the lock, glad that Jim had at least thought to lock the door, and searched each room either for Jim or the source of the music. Either would do- it was so loud that Sherlock could feel the walls shiver in protest. Besides, Jim was probably right next to the damn speakers.  
  
The first two floors were empty, though showed obvious signs of having been abused by Jim. The wallpaper was ripped, a table had been set on fire, and some small animal had been attached to the ceiling fan- its blood had splattered all the walls as it rotated. Wincing, Sherlock hurried up towards the source of the noise, knowing that was where Jim would be. 

And so he was. He was dressed in his favourite Westwood, his ear pressed against the speaker as if straining to hear the music that was currently cleaving Sherlock in two. He held a gun in the other hand, and on spotting Sherlock, he smiled softly. Knowing better than to turn the music off, Sherlock settled for turning it down, so that he and Jim could speak. Assuming the idiot hadn’t deafened himself.  
  
‘Jim?’  
  
‘Staying Alive!’ Jim crowed. ‘So boring, isn’t it? It’s just staying…’  
  
His eyes went blank and distant, as if he were looking into a void Sherlock couldn’t see. Except Sherlock could see it, had seen it, had felt this way on and off for as long as he could remember. They’d been born out of it, the two of them, and death would suck them back into the vortex.

‘All my life I’ve been searching for distraction,’ Jim said, ‘and never finding it. Living on and on and just  _staying_  here, like  _this_ , and nothing…’

‘You have-‘  
  
‘Don’t say I have you,’ Jim snarled. ‘Don’t you dare. You’re on the side of the angels.’  
  
‘I may be on the side of the angels but don’t you think for one single second that I am one of them.’

Something receded from Jims eyes then, and they became larger, more alive. Sherlock didn’t turn from the cold, desperate gaze. He welcomed it. He’d said nothing but the truth, and the sooner Jim remembered that…  
  
‘You’re right. You’re not one of them… You’re me.’  
  
Something flashed in Jims eyes, gone too fast for Sherlock to identify.  
  
‘You’re  _me!’_  Jim said, and he sounded disgusted, as if the very idea of there being two of him sickened him to his soul. Perhaps it did, Sherlock realised; perhaps he thought two Jims was one too many. A mad kind of happiness lit up Jims eyes. ‘You’re me…’

Jim pressed the gun into his mouth, eyes on Sherlock, and pulled the trigger.  
  
It clicked.  
  
For a few seconds they were both very still. Jim seemed to be in suspended animation, as if waiting for a bullet to emerge, or the gates of hell to open. Sherlock was waiting for Jim to work out what’d _actually_  happened. Slowly, Jim pulled the gun from between his lips, looking down at it. He seemed surprised to find his hand shaking.  
  
‘You knew,’ he said, softly. ‘You  _knew_  I’d… How did you know?’  
  
‘It was easy,’ Sherlock smiled. ‘I’m you, remember?’  
  
Slowly, still unsure, Jim returned the smile. He looked very young as he did so, like a small boy given a wonderful secret to treasure. Sherlock relaxed minutely- the worst of the black mood was always over when Jims expression changed like that.  
  
‘I owe you, Sherlock,’ Jim said, quite seriously.

~

The nightmares were strange. They were not like Johns nightmares, which were utterly realistic. John dreamed about war, guns, death, blood, bombs, rotting limbs, flies, running, being shot, dead friends. He dreamt about things he had experienced, and could not un-experiance. He dreamt about things that had actually happened, things that still could happen.  
  
Sherlock did not dream like that. His dreams always contained death, or flowers, or large and dangerous African animals. He would dream of a room containing literal nothing, which he feared to enter, but was forced to by a pack of gigantic aggressive hippos.

Trying to sleep, Sherlock listened through the silent flat, hearing John shout twice in his sleep before waking. Somehow knowing he wasn’t alone in his night terrors calmed Sherlock. Hearing Johns ragged breathing soothed him, and he slept. And he dreamed of Jim.  
  
It wasn’t unusual for Jim to be in Sherlocks dreams. He lay in a coffin, eyes open and smiling, clutching a bundle of red flowers to his chest. For reasons unknown, he was naked. Despite being very obviously dead, he beckoned to Sherlock, as if he wanted to whisper something in his ear. Sherlock climbed into the coffin with Jim, and his skin felt cold, a little slimey, and somehow erotic. The lid of the coffin slammed shut, Sherlock still wedged inside beside Jim.   
  
Sherlock woke, taking deep gasping breaths. Hours had passed, and John was asleep again. Dreaming about death always meant dreaming and Jim, and dreaming about Jim meant Sherlock dreamed about himself too. It seemed his mind could not, in sleep, find any difference between the two.

~

Sunset over London was not often very spectacular. Smog or clouds or both made the orange light fuzzy and dull, and some of the buildings were more eyesores than marvels. Yet Sherlock enjoyed those kinds of sunsets more, because they reminded him of where he was, of Londons inescapable impact upon everything.  
  
‘Knew I’d find you up here,’ Jim said, coming to sit on the rooftop beside Sherlock. ‘Not planning to star-gaze, are we? Or are we just pondering the way we rotate the sun so beautifully?’  
  
‘We are enjoying a cigarette,’ Sherlock said, ignoring the solar system jab. ‘Feel free to be quiet.’  
  
Jim snorted, kicking off his shoes. They fell all ten stories in perfect unison, landing and bouncing across the concrete below. They’d cost more than Johns entire winter wardrobe, and Sherlock rolled his eyes.  
  
‘You’re insane.’  
  
‘You’re only just getting that now?’  
  
Sherlock shrugged, past the cigarette to Jim, and turned back to watch the sunset. Soon it would be dark, and the only light would come from the windows of the buildings below. It was a good thought.  
  
‘Thanks for the case,’ Sherlock added, remembering himself. Jim had supplied him with a very interesting week-long case, which had ended in a stale-mate for them both. Neither of them minded that; the only point of the thing had been to keep the boredom at bay. ‘A very interesting touch, with the pigeons.’  
  
‘Yes, I thought you’d like that. You’re very happy with me, aren’t you…’ It wasn’t a question. ‘You like having me around. On the streets. The tit to your tat.’  
  
‘I’m very happy with myself, too, you know. But its true. I am happy, with you and with… all of this.’  
  
‘Who would have guessed?’

Sherlock exhaled smoke, shrugging. The sun finally dipped below the last line of buildings, and the darkness at once became a little closer, a little fuller. Jim was warm beside him, one of his hands wrapped around Sherlocks free hand.  
  
‘I wouldn’t have guessed,’ Sherlock said, breaking the silence. ‘But for once, I don’t overly mind being surprised. I rather think  _I_  owe  _you.’_


End file.
